said teasingly. “I got a bit caught up this morning. You know how it is.”
Her gaze narrowed further, sensing the lie in my tone and she was right. I’d woken late, worked out for longer than usual and stopped for breakfast in my favourite restaurant before taking the long route to get here. I was late because I didn’t care to respect her schedule and that was really just a nod at the family politics which always hung between us.
My father was the undisputed head of the family and Rocco was his second as far and me and Enzo were concerned, though our oldest brother always stayed firm with us so that really meant the three of us were on a level. He didn’t pull rank often and he always listened to what we had to say. So the whole hierarchy was pretty clear to me. But as Papa’s only sibling, Clarissa seemed to think she at least matched if not out-ranked Rocco and she definitely believed she was above me in the pecking order. The fact that I didn’t agree caused more than a little tension between us and I had no doubt she was crowing with fucking delight at the thought of setting me some task today. Hence my late arrival. It wouldn’t do for her to believe she actually held power over me.
Sometimes I wished Papa would just set her straight, but I think he enjoyed watching us all battle it out for dominance beneath him.
I pulled out the chair opposite her, tossing a request for my own coffee at the serving girl before she could scurry away. She looked like she wanted to refuse my casual demand and I arched an eyebrow at her in surprise as she glanced at my aunt for confirmation and Clarissa gave a firm, slightly pissed off, nod to confirm my command.
“So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this invitation?” I asked, giving her my winning smile as I reclined in my chair like I owned the fucking world, spreading my knees wide and slinging an arm over the back of it.
“I have an issue that I need help with,” she said calmly, brushing at her skirt as if there were crumbs on it. “A consignment of product has been stolen from me and my dealers will be low on stock until I can recover it.”
I released a long whistle, failing to hide my smirk at that news. “How did that fuck up happen?”
“I have my own men dealing with the situation, I don’t need your assistance with that. I’m asking for you to broker a deal with the Santiago Cartel to make up the slack,” she said irritably, not answering my question.
“Fine,” I replied. I had contacts in the cartel and even though I didn’t really like the way they ran their businesses, I could easily make those arrangements. “They won’t be cheap though,” I added.
“I’m aware. But it’s worth it to ensure the buyers don’t go looking elsewhere while we fix this situation.”
“What happened then? How did someone manage to steal from you?” I asked, my amusement clear in my tone which only served to piss her off more. But this was fucking brilliant. Papa would be pissed as all hell with her over this and if I helped fix the problem then it was only for the better.
Clarissa bristled, but she had no good reason to hide the information from me so she pulled her iPad across the table and opened up a series of images on it before handing them to me.
I took it and perused them carefully. There were seven men lying dead in the snow, blood all around them and their faces marked with agony. There was something about the wounds I could see that had my eyebrow raising. Though with their winter coats it was hard to inspect everything clearly, there was definitely something about them that seemed…professional.
“How many men ambushed them?” I asked as I continued to cycle through the photographs, eyeing the snowmobiles with blood splattered over the paintwork.
Clarissa huffed in irritation. “We think…one,” she admitted like that knowledge was painful. And I guessed it was pretty embarrassing to admit one man had defeated seven of hers so easily. “Some attempts had been made to cover up the evidence, but it’s hard to do that thoroughly in the snow. And there were boot prints, though the storms had blown in to cover a lot of them.”